


Your Company Makes the Dark Mornings Bright

by Lenasaurous



Series: High Fantasy AU [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, High Fantasy AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:18:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenasaurous/pseuds/Lenasaurous
Summary: Turning over, he moved to look at Shuichi, who was still deep in sleep, facing away from him slightly. His face was serenely blank and soft snores puffed through his nose, his hair stuck out at odd angles or otherwise hugged the off-white pillow.He looked up at Shuichi, eyes tracing his hair line and the curve of his jaw before coming to rest on the foreign blemish sat on his cheek. Kokichi chuckled to himself, knowing that Shuichi wouldn’t be too happy when he looked in the mirror later that morning.





	Your Company Makes the Dark Mornings Bright

It was dark and relatively cold when Kokichi stirred from sleep. He blinked blearily, yawning and gulping down the gunk that had congealed in his mouth throughout the night. He hugged his arms around himself against the cold, knees coming up to touch his chin.

He opened his eyes and stared blankly at the pale brown cloth that met his gaze in the dark, only half a foot or so away from his nose. The drapes surrounding the bed generally did a shitty job of keeping the cold out, they needed thicker ones. He quickly reminded himself to tell Shuichi that when he realised why he was colder than normal.

Turning over, he moved to look at Shuichi, who was still deep in sleep, facing away from him slightly. His face was serenely blank and soft snores puffed through his nose, hair stuck out at odd angles or otherwise hugged the off-white pillow.

Kokichi smiled fondly and shuffled up so he could share in the other’s body heat, nuzzling his nose into Shuichi’s arm, gentle enough so as not to wake him up.

He looked up at Shuichi, eyes tracing his hair line and the curve of his jaw before coming to rest on the foreign blemish sat on his cheek. Kokichi chuckled to himself, knowing that Shuichi wouldn’t be too happy when he looked in the mirror later that morning. When it settled on his face he couldn’t hide it, and it generally meant his day was going to be pretty shitty. He briefly tried to recall if Shuichi had done anything to annoy his patron recently but came up with nothing.

Gingerly, Kokichi lifted his hand to trace it with the tip of his finger, trailing it from just below his earlobe, up to the corner of his eye and the curve as it bent back in on itself, forming what looked like a half-assed spiral. It was really noticeable. He could already see Shuichi poking at it all day and tutting disdainfully every time he passed the mirror in the hall to go down to the street.

He always felt rather bittersweet looking at it. Without it, he and Shuichi would likely not be where they were today. But it still made Shuichi miserable, and he prioritised Shuichi’s happiness above all else.

The first time he’d seen it, it had terrified him.

The fruit of their own carelessness, of not listening, not heeding the warning they’d been given. It had also been the first time Kokichi had ever regretted breaking a rule; he was still living the consequences of it, looking at it, tracing it with his index finger.

Shuichi had never blamed Kokichi for it, he’d blamed himself more than anything for agreeing to the stupid pact. But they’d only been children at the time, they hadn’t really known any better. How were they supposed to know that the weird book their uncle been working with created a link to the fourth layer of hell?

He remembered how angry Isoshi had been too. He’d been just as mortified by the mark then staining Shuichi’s ankle and had taken to ignoring both of them the rest of the day, muttering about magic and adventures in ways that were anything but out of the story books he bought them, things Kokichi and Shuichi were forbidden from talking about. Things about his past, the past they were to remain ignorant to until they got to old to keep it from.

Kokichi withdrew his hand as Shuichi started muttering and shuffled until Kokichi was staring at his back. He rolled his eyes, slightly put out, but now with the absence of Shuichi’s face to look at, he instead snaked his arms around his torso, holding him close and resting his forehead against the back of Shuichi’s neck.

He still sometimes couldn’t believe this was just something he could do. He’d been dreaming of it since he was old enough to understand romance and intimacy but keeping it firmly within the boundaries of his imagination. And here he was, living his dream.

It occasionally worried him to think what other people might do if they should ever find out. What they had wasn’t right to the rest of society, but then again, what they _were_ wasn’t necessarily right to society either. Kokichi had been living with that sort of judgement since birth after all.

But Shuichi had never judged him. It would have been rather hypocritical if he had, but that didn’t matter. All that did was that he didn’t care what Kokichi was, he had always cared more about who he was and that had been all it took for him to fall so hopelessly in love with him.

He didn’t know how long he’d been laying there, nose being tickled by the hem of Shuichi’s night shirt, smelling the perfume of his unwashed skin, but eventually, Shuichi shifted beneath him again. This time though, he seemed a lot more conscious, his muscles tensing and stretching, grunting as his back clicked inaudibly, Kokichi able to feel it under his chest.

Soon after Kokichi felt Shuichi grabbing at his hand, squeezing his fingers together, as if reminding himself of where he was, who he was with.

Shuichi yawned softly before moving onto his back, looking down at Kokichi who was now faking sleep.

“How long have you been up?” Shuichi asked groggily, his voice a cracked whisper.

Kokichi snapped his eyes open and pouted. “It’s no fun if you don’t at least _pretend_ to buy it,” he whined quietly, poking at Shuichi’s leg with his toe.

Shuichi chuckled and gently squeezed Kokichi’s hand again. “Seriously.”

“Oh _hours,_ ” he answered. “Honestly, you sleep like a rock. A very unaffectionate rock. You just refused to look my way, so I couldn’t even poke at your face.”

In response, Shuichi let go of Kokichi’s hand and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pulling the shorter boy close so his chin was resting atop his head, his fingers playing with the shorter hairs at the base of his neck. “This better?”

“Much,” Kokichi conceded, giggling and cosying into Shuichi’s chest, resting his cheek on his collarbone. “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I found your binding mark already.”

Shuichi sighed and drew back a little, so he could look down at Kokichi’s face. “Where is it today then?”

Kokichi stared up into Shuichi’s eyes, tired and warm, drunk slightly on drowsiness. He hated to ruin his beautiful felicity, but Kokichi was a firm believer in ripping the bandage off quickly. But not so much that he was going to answer straight.

“Your knee,” he replied, trying to make it relatively obvious that it wasn’t true. As expected, Shuichi shot him a look that told him just to spit it out. Instead of instantly correcting himself though, Kokichi brought his hand up to trace the mark printed onto Shuichi’s face again, just slightly darker than the shade of the other’s skin.

Quickly, Shuichi’s face morphed into one of aggravation. “Oh, you’re kidding me.”

“Nope,” he said apologetically. “I’ll handle the shop today if you want.”

A grateful smile replaced the annoyance in response, filling Kokichi’s chest with a warm sense of triumph. Shuichi dragged his fingers through Kokichi’s hair and kissed him gently on his temple. “If you’re offering,” he muttered gratefully. “I suppose it’s moments like these that remind me why I keep you around.”

“Aww, Shuichi! That’s so mean!” Kokichi protested playfully, kicking at the other’s feet. “If all I am is a slave to you, maybe I should just leave and never come back. I’m sure I could go live with Rantarou, he can stand me.”

“Shut up,” Shuichi shushed him, flicking at his ear. “It’s too early for this.”

“I _guess_. But I mean it.”

“Kokichi, I said shut up.”

“So, does this mean you really don’t care if I leave! B-but I thought you loved me Shuichi! Was all of it a _lie!?_ ” he began to blubber, summoning crocodile tears, doing his best not to smirk at the look of exasperation on Shuichi’s face.

Before he could start crying though, Shuichi had bent his head down and sealed Kokichi’s lips in a kiss, long and sweet, keeping his face but an inch away after pulling away.

“I said shut up.”

Kokichi just nodded, smiling softly, subdued. He pushed their foreheads together, staring into Shuichi’s eyes, counting the small flecks of gold he found in the pools of almond. Shuichi’s gaze held his, staring at him like he had found the most beautiful thing on all planes of existence and it made Kokichi’s insides go gooey with love and other disgusting emotions. He both loved and hated it: he felt weak for what this one person could reduce him to but the overpowering adoration for the boy lying next to him constantly reminded him that it also makes him stronger.

“I know you want me to be quiet,” Kokichi whispered, feeling his breath bounce back onto his face off of Shuichi’s, “but I can I say something?”

Shuichi snorted quietly, a soft trickle of laughter tumbling down their chests. “Sure.”

Kokichi smiled and rubbed his nose against Shuichi’s. “I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you too,” Shuichi replied tenderly before kissing him again. “But I’m gonna take you up on the shop offer.”

Kokichi rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished writing my A level English Literature coursework and after that nightmare I just needed the fluff. And so we have this. I thought it was cute. Pointless but cute. And that was what I wanted. It was initially supposed to explain how Shuichi entered a warlock pact but it got lost in the fluff.  
> I promise that at some point I'll expand the cast and actually /use/ the AU I have here guys, honest. The next one in this series should be about when they were kids. Reading that one will hopefully put parts of this into context, so bits that felt unexplained just are. Sorry about that.  
> I hope you enjoyed reading! Don't forget to tell me what you thought if you want to! Love you all!  
> PS. Isoshi is my fanon name Shuichi's uncle.


End file.
